Lufthansa Technik Expands Air Canada and Shenzhen JV Business

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Lufthansa Technik Expands Air Canada and Shenzhen JV Business

Lufthansa Technik extends contract with Air Canada and continues to extend its scope at Shenzhen.

Chris Kjelgaard | May 01, 2017

Lufthansa Technik has won a 10-year contract from Air Canada to provide Total Component Support (TCS) for the airline's future fleet of up to 109 Boeing 737 MAX aircraft.

Air Canada also has extended the existing CFM56-5A and CFM56-5B engine services contract it has with LHT for another eight years, to 2026.

Montréal-headquartered Air Canada has 61 Boeing 737 MAX aircraft--33 73708s and 28 737-9s--on firm order and has secured options on 18 more 737 MAXs, as well as purchase rights for 30 more.

Its newly extended Air Canada CFM56-5 maintenance contract will include the services of Lufthansa Technik's Hamburg facility, as well as its on-site mobile engine team in Montréal, according to Frank Berwerger, LHT's senior vice president corporate sales Americas. LHT has been providing MRO services for Air Canada's CFM56-5A and -5B engines since 2012.

Separately, on the 15th anniversary of the establishment of Lufthansa Technik Shenzhen, the joint venture's managing director has announced that the company plans to offer repair services for additional parts beyond the 3,000 part numbers it covers now.

Lufthansa Technik Shenzhen also plans to expand its portfolio of mobile Airline Support Team (AST) services.

At an anniversary celebration at Lufthansa Technik Shenzhen's workshops at Shenzhen Bao'an International Airport, Detlev Jeske, the company's managing director, said that by adding more part support and mobile services, “Our aim is to become the central point of contact for our customers in every aspect of the reliable technical operation of their fleets.”

A joint venture 80% owned by Lufthansa Technik and 20% owned by Beijing Kailan Aviation Technology, Lufthansa Technik Shenzhen was initially established only to provide repairs within the Asia-Pacific region of difficult-to-transport thrust reversers.

However, today the company employs about 600 people, to support customers throughout the Asia Pacific region with component repairs, airframe components repairs, engine part repairs and Airline Support Team services, which Lufthansa Technik Shenzhen provides at its customers' own sites.

Nowadays Lufthansa Technik prides itself on its skills and knowledge in repairing complex components made of carbon-fibre composite materials. The company also touts its state-of-the-art repair and test equipment. Its installed equipment base ranges from a large autoclave to test instruments for new-generation avionics components.

According to Lufthansa Technik Shenzhen, these capabilities have helped it become the technology center for the Lufthansa Technik Group in Asia.

After launching operations in 2002 with 40 employees and a total workshop floor area of 6,300 sq. meters (67,800 sq. ft.), Lufthansa Technik Shenzhen thought it might eventually be able to employ up to 100 people once it had completed its development phase, and planned to repair up to 10 CFM56-3 thrust-reverser halves per month.

Now, however, Lufthansa Technik Shenzhen has 25,000 sq. meters (269,100 sq. ft.) of workshop floors and is looking to grow further.

In its most recent expansion phase, Lufthansa Technik Shenzhen built facilities to support the Airbus A350 XWB, Boeing 777 and Boeing 787. It recently invested in another autoclave with a diameter of more than five meters, to accommodate the large composite components those aircraft types incorporate.

Lufthansa Technik Shenzhen holds repair approvals from the Civil Aviation Administration of China, the FAA, EASA and the aviation authorities of almost all the countries in the Asia Pacific region.